


iron loyalty

by cateliot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bahrain, F/M, Interrogation, Loyalty, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Calvary, avenger - Freeform, drugged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 08:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4953901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cateliot/pseuds/cateliot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gonzales finds that trying to break Melinda May is harder than it looks, especially when she’s protecting Phil Coulson. (Avenger appearance).</p>
            </blockquote>





	iron loyalty

**_They say you can’t love someone unless you love yourself first. Lies. I have never loved myself, but you…oh god, I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like._ **

::

She hadn’t moved since they had thrown her in the box. Her blood had boiled over at the sight of being contained in the same cell Ward had. _The traitor’s cell_. She refused to touch the bed— _his bed_ —and moved to the far corner of the cell where she had calmly folded herself into a meditative pose where she could see any oncoming attack.

The hard wall was cold against her back, but she didn’t mind as it kept her alert. Dozens of people walked by, some nervously watching her from behind the clear electric glass, others focused on inventory of the base.

“Ah, Agent May, I see you’ve woken up.”

She bit her tongue sharply to calm her angry heartrate at the sight of plump and overdressed Gonzales. She had never liked the man, even back when she had graduated from the Academy and they met on a mission briefing in Naples.

He was seated in a chair in front of her, fingers twiddling with his cane, watching her with his head tilted slightly to left like she was a curiosity and he was an observer at the zoo.

May gave no indication she heard him.

He sighed and leaned back in the plastic chair he had plopped down in front of her cell. “Agent May, you know how this goes. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”

It took a great amount of self-control not to roll her eyes at _that_.

He droned on about Coulson and his plans. In the days following, she couldn’t distinguish the different conversations from each other; in the end they were all the same. She tuned him out, a skill she had learned early on from her S.O. in the Academy.

Instead she focused on something else with his every visit: doing every move in the series of her morning tai chi in her head, replaying conversations she and Coulson had during their long nights out on their first missions, collecting ingredients for Chinese recipes her mother used to make around the holidays, anything but the fact Coulson was out there alone without backup.

So she kept still.

And she kept quiet.

::

After a week of her barely moving an inch, they send Jemma inside. She didn’t move when they pushed her through the perimeter of the cell, armed guards pointing automatic guns at her as she blankly looked over at the tiny scientist.

She supposed she should feel honored that they thought she was that much of a threat.

Melinda turned her attention to Jemma who seemed like a quaking, tiny mouse. She seemed ruffled by the excessive force, May didn’t move from her corner as Simmons straightened her polka dotted blouse and moved to come and kneel next to her.

“May, oh my god.”

Over Simmons’ shoulder, May saw Bobbi and Gonzales watching carefully from the corner of the room. Gonzales leaning on his cane, intently watching their interaction behind his glasses.

“Simmons,” May grabbed her wrist to stop her and felt a wave of dizziness wash over her as the sudden motion. “Jemma, stop.”

The girl’s eyes got wider. “May, you’re sick,” she shuffled through the large doctor’s bag she had been thrown inside with. “Here, let me help. You’re heart’s metabolic rate is entirely too slow, even for your normal, relaxed levels. And this certainly isn’t relaxed. When was the last time you ingested anything?”

May’s head spun trying to keep up with woman’s quick English. It was getting harder to convert from English and her native Cantonese and back at her normal speed. Her chest burned as she forced herself to try and breathe, to move. She managed to grab Simmons’ hand before it reached her skin with needle.

“Simmons—no, stop.”

“No, really, it’ll make a big difference in your ability to—”

“ _Jemma_ , if you don’t stop, I’m going to have to hurt you.”

The girl reeled back immediately.

Shock and fear echoed off her face as she sat back on her heels. May could see tears pricking the backs of her brown eyes. Somewhere in her chest, she felt bad, but if it kept Coulson safe, she could handle it.

“You helped Coulson escape.”

May inclined her head at the confirmation of facts both women already knew. “I have details about Fury’s toolbox, if you have some way of contacting him, I could brief him about the situation, about you. I—I promise I won’t tell.”

Her eyes anxiously locked onto May’s face.

“You’re a bad liar, Simmons,” May said gently.

“The room’s bugged,” she revealed, her voice wavering terribly.

“I know.”

“They said they would let you out if I got you to tell me where you sent Coulson.” She looked miserable, May observed. Her hair lacked its normal youthful bounce in its curls, her face looked more washed out, and her eyes drooped.

“Fitz left.”

“You should have gone with him.” May was careful to keep her voice gentle and soft as fatigue overwhelmed her.

“I can’t just leave,” she said, “someone needs to stay here for when everything goes back to normal.”

May smiled inwardly at her innocence even after everything that had happened, the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fitz’s accident, her uncover stint at HYDRA, Ward. Another dizzy spell made her close her eyes and rest her head back on the cold wall supporting her.

“May, you have to eat something.”

She had found tiny puncture marks on the first day they tried to feed her, both on the water bottle’s lid and the underside of the granola bar wrapper. After that she knew it wasn’t safe.

“Sodium thiopental.”

“What?”

“Sodium amytal. Scopolamine.”

May’s eyes flickered open to see confusion on the young scientist’s face. “All are barbiturates, sometimes used in third world countries for anesthesia, but have been replaced in the United States. I don’t understand. What do they have to do with…”

Understanding dawned on her face and her cheeks flamed red with anger.

May glanced up to meet the eyes Gonzales.

“They forget who they’re dealing with.”

::

“You’re handling her wrong,” Bobbi snapped as the Director entered. He didn’t seemed fazed as he calmly sat down to the monitor and took a large gulp of water from the glass on the table. “You can’t force Melinda May to talk. She’s going to die of malnutrition if you leave her in there. She caught on to your sly plan of trying to dose her.”

He turned towards her finally. “If she’s going to die, it’s of her own accord. S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn’t touched her.”

“She _is_ S.H.I.E.L.D.!” Bobbi snapped harshly.

::

Then they sent Bobbi.

The deception expert and interrogation master looked nervous as she approached cell and a foot away from the rectangular box. May was sure she looked bad. She was silent and there seemed to be a silent struggle for power.

Finally, Melinda won and Bobbi spoke.

“We can help you, May, just give me something, anything.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“May…”

“Don’t come here looking for absolution,” May hissed, moving into a standing position to face the blonde agent, “you feel guilty for betraying us, deal with it.”

“You know _nothing_ about the situation here, or what happened on that boat with HYDRA,” Bobbi fired off loudly. She stalked outside the cell angrily like a lioness.  

“I know _everything_ about loyalty.”

May’s dark eyes bore into her blue ones.

Bobbi gritted her teeth. “You let him escape,” she refocused. May said nothing, just watched her impassively. There hadn’t been a question.

“Where did you send him? One of your safe houses? I know you have safe holds on every continent. We could have resolved this peacefully. They’re going to try and take him in with deadly force now.”

“Do not pretend to have stake in this game, Agent Morse, you are no longer a part of this team. You’re just a chess piece for the other team to conduct. And when the time comes for us to face off, Hunter will join us and we will protect him against you.”

The blonde recoiled as if May had struck her.

“We know you know everything about his operation, May. You’ve worked together since the Academy, you’ve been his second in command since S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fall. You were his secret keeper.”

May felt her heart spin and she stepped back from the fizzling glass. “Back at the Academy, they say the only person you couldn’t read in interrogation is Natasha Romanoff,” May said conversationally as she folded herself back into her corner. Bobbi’s eyebrows contracted, confused.

“I was her S.O.”  

::

Another week later, all her energy was focused on trying to stay upright. She was no longer sure the cycles of days and nights. Her head almost always felt like it was spinning. The nausea was almost constant now. Her chest felt like it was on fire.

“Agent Simmons says she thinks you have a collapsing lung,” Gonzales said casually, “probably damaged in a previous fight and now doesn’t have enough energy to continue healing itself. She estimates you have about 24 hours before you lose it.”

“I’m pretty sure you can live with only one,” she replied coolly.

The man growled in frustration. “Agent May, I have never met anyone with a smaller sense of self-preservation than you,” he thundered. She smirked, but he continued, “so I’ve come with a peace offering.”

He held up a standard S.H.I.E.L.D. operation summary folder and May felt the floor fall out from under her. Her world spun and her stomach plummeted to her toes.

_“Where did you get that?”_

A cruel smile snaked onto his face and he sat down in the same chair he had occupied over and over again. The thick, heavy folder was worn. In large, bold letters it read:

**MANAMA, BAHRAIN 2007**

**CLASSIFIED: LEVEL 10**

May felt her stomach knot and her chest feel like someone had sliced it open. She knew it had nothing to do with malnutrition or her dying lung and everything to do what was in that text.

“I called in an old, old favor from an equally old friend. I’m tired of this song and dance, Agent May, and I’m sure you are too. I have dozens of agents upstairs vouching for you upstairs, furious that I’m keeping _The Calvary_ in a tiny twelve by twelve box.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Her voice had lost most of its conviction as and she struggled to breathe and Gonzales only seemed amused.

“So here’s how this is going to work, you tell me where you sent Coulson and the location of your safe houses and his, then I will give you this,” he tapped the folder for sharp emphasis, “to do whatever you please with.”

Coulson’s dead body surrounded by the debris of the Battle of New York flashed to the forefront of her mind and the shards of her heart clenched painfully, slicing the insides of her chest.

“Go to hell.”

He looked less than impressed.

“Not the correct answer, Agent May.”

May leaned back against the wall feeling the black dots around her eyes dance. _Breathe Melinda_ , _breathe_ , she told herself. _Focus on the movement. In and out. In and out. Push everything else away. As long as you’re silent, Coulson and the others are safe._

“If you continue to ignore me, Agent, I’m going to sit here and read it to you.”

::

Her escape party startled her out of an unconscious haze of Bahrain nightmares.

The assault of gunfight hotwired her body’s natural response to danger and her eyes shot opened. Her muscles tensed as she tried to move to a standing position, feeling her chest burn more than ever before. “Damn it, Melinda, focus,” she growled under her breath. She couldn’t recognize either side fighting there was such chaos. Gun fire recoiled off her cell wall and she jerked back.

The edges of her blurred and by the time it cleared, a face was peering down at her. One she recognized.

“What’s up, Mels.”

 _Clint_.

She released the breath she didn’t know she could even be holding. “Clint,” she coughed, “what are you doing here?”

He smiled charmingly, turning slightly to the left to fire three shots through the hole he had puncture in the cell. “One of your duckling sent out the SOS,” he said, “and it’s time for our exit plan.”

He pulled her up with one hand, keeping a gun trained on the opening. The second he let go and her standing support and she crumpled, her feet failing under her.

Concern lit up the archer’s features and his eyes coursed over her.

“Whoa there. Easy, easy— _Melinda_? Hey, focus for me,” he said as he caught her before she hit the floor. May’s eyes went in and out of focus and for a moment the sound of gunfire seemed to fade. “All right, time to go, _you are going to kill me for this later but_ ,” he murmured as he easily hoisted her into his arms in the traditional bridal pose.

“You’re in charge of this.” He thrusted something metal into her unsteady hands and her reflexes cocked the gun without her mind even registering Clint shoving the Glock into her hands.

“There’s the girl we know and love,” he said, soothingly. “ _MARIA_!” Out of the corner of her eye, May saw Maria Hill turn at the sound of her name. “I have the package. Time to go.”

As Hawkeye turned the stairs, May jerked back at the gun’s sudden recoil in her hand. Her eyes caught the sight of a man’s body dropping to the ground behind them. Clint stopped short, glancing back at the now dead operative, his automatic weapon not far from his side. The stray bullet that had been aiming from May and Clint’s backs missed and hit one of the computers.

“I forgot how much I like having you on my six, Mels.”

Simmons screamed as one of Hill’s guard grabbed her from where she had ducked under an overturned table and flung her over his shoulder. The gunfire exploded overhead was the last thing she remembered.

::

May was aware of someone’s presence in the room with her as soon as her eyes began to flutter.

“Easy, Mels. Go slow.”

The voice came from as the light stung at her eyes her vision took in the soft image of a spare bedroom, light purple walls, the beeping of machines, and a white bed comforter.

Clint was in hospital bed next to her. His soft blue flannel shirt rubbed up against shoulder. He looked slightly scruffier than the last time she had seen him, a few months after Coulson’s death with Nat.

“You attacked two guards and one of the nurses. I told them not to try and wake you, but they didn’t listen.” She relaxed against the pillow and felt her body leech the warm that the archer was giving off. The man she considered the brother gave her a half smile.

“So I convinced that biochem girl of yours to let me stay in with you in case you went nuts again. Maria wanted to try and minimize the causalities.”

“Simmons?”

Her voice cracked and he eased the cup on the end table next to him up to her lips. The water was cool against the back of her throat.

“Fine. You’ve been out about five days, but we’ve been watching out for her. She’s downstairs with JARVIS. Those two should get a room with all the physics mumbo jumbo they’ve been spouting the last few days. I think Maria’s only staying to play chaperone.”

She hummed and felt the blowtorch in her chest intensify. She burrowed in the pile of blankets next to him, unable to shake off the feeling of ice on all of her limbs.

“Why didn’t you call us after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell? We could have been allies? What happened that you two went from being the leaders of an organization to being on the run and captives?” There was an undertone of betrayal in his voice and Melinda’s heart jerked painfully.

“We were betrayed.”

Her voice was quiet. And there was a the soft hum of machines in the background as May ran her fingers up and down the IV and god knew how many other tubes Simmons had connected her to.

“How long til—”

“Don’t even think about it. You did a really nice job breaking yourself this time. Luckily Banner and your duckling could repair most of the damage.”

The side of her vision began to blur with blackness and jerked up in the bed, her pulsing racing with the anxiety of not being about to control her body. One of the monitors went crazy with a screeching hiss.

“Just relax,” Barton’s voice was soothing, but not the same comfort as Coulson’s. His hand eased her back against the pillows and a hurricane of dizziness and hot pain assaulted her as she fought against the darkness stealing her into unconscious.

“If you don’t relax the machines are going to make your ducking come up here and yell at us. Melinda, try to breathe…”        

“ _Phil._ ”

The intent of the word was clear because he just gave her his usual dazzling smile. “No idea, you won’t tell anyone of us his location and we’ve asked, several times. Pretty sure that’s why you took out Happy. It means you didn’t tell them.”

He put his hand over hers, the smaller one disappearing into the folds of the blanket under his larger one.

“He’s safe for now. You did good, Mels.”

She blacked out.

::

Carrying May’s latest test results she moved into the kitchen to find Agents Barton and Hill only to stumble upon an argument in the tiled room of one of Stark’s safe houses.

“—never wanted to go back into the field in the first place,” Barton was saying and as she rounded the corner she jumped at the sight of her boss standing in the kitchen light, sleep deprived, slightly crumpled, but very much there.

“SIR?”

The two men jumped apart and Barton stuffed his hands in his pants pockets dejectedly. “Simmons, good to see you.” The greeting rang weird in their current situation. “Are you all right?”

Her tongue felt slightly thick in her mouth as she responded. “I’m not the one who almost died. Is Fitz with you?”

The agent shook his head. “No, he’s back at another safe house with Tripp.”

"Where she should have been," Barton hissed under his breath.  Coulson jerked around to face him, but before he could get any words out, they were cut off. 

“I think we all need to cool down,” Maria Hill barked, appearing on the other side of Jemma. “Arguing is only going to upset her more. We’re all here for the same reason…Melinda.”

Hearing the Chinese woman’s first name spoken was so strange that she almost missed the Commander’s next statement.

“Are those her latest labs?”

Simmons blinked. “Err, yes. Her protein and glucose levels have plateaued since yesterday. I’m going to up the dose of antibiotics just to make sure she doesn’t get an infection in the lung…sir, have you seen her yet?”

Coulson’s eyes were scanning the lab paper that Hill had handed him and glanced up for the briefest of moments. “No, not yet.”

Her eyes brows quirked.

“She needs you.”

Barton’s growl was low.

Coulson sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“She needs to get better.”

Barton threw up his hands and scoffed. “Please, she hasn’t been your priority since Fury handed you the keys to the kingdom. You know it, I know it, and she knows it. The problem is she’s the same as Melinda she was when we got out of the Academy. She doesn’t know how to look out for herself and then things like this happen.”

“This isn’t like before. You don’t know what happened in ther—”

Maria put her hand on Coulson’s shoulder and the man quieted softly. “We all just need to whatever is going to help Melinda. If that’s waiting until Natasha gets here or calling Andrew, then we need to do that. If that’s waiting until she is past the rough points before Phil goes up then we do that.”

Simmons realized in that moment that she knew almost nothing about the woman on the floor above her. Two years together and the names being thrown around so casually were unknown to her. She didn’t know a thing that would help her heal.

But she did know one thing…

“Sir, I think she’d like to see you.”

“Despite your expanded knowledge of the world, Simmons, there are still some things that you don’t understand, Simmons, and Melinda May is one of them.”

Simmons jerked back at the terse tone growled from her boss’ throat. Up close she could see the dark bags standing out on his skin, the more defined wrinkles along the corners of his mouth, and a redness in his eyes.

“She was going to die in there for you…” Simmons flushed slightly and cleared her throat to raise her voice, “Gonzales wanted to know where you and the box were and the only one who knew was May. But she wasn’t going to tell him. She would have died instead of betraying you.”

::

May’s eyes fluttered to find the moon at its full glory in the window and a hand holding her own. She immediately knew who it was even before their eyes met.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said breathily.

Coulson smiled and straightened in the chair beside her bed. “Clint called,” he said simply and she nodded in understanding. “I had to see you for myself.”

“I’m fine,” she brushed his off concern with an eye roll, agitated with just how rusted her voice was. She was suddenly happy for the puddle of blankets on the bed, covering her form from his concerned gaze.

“Simmons said you almost died,” he said quietly, his hand rubbing small circles mindlessly on the inside of her wrist. The intimacy of the movement couldn’t be missed but May wasn’t even sure he consciously knew he was doing it.

His eyes searched her face for an answer to the question he didn’t ask and her voice was still cracked when she answered.

“I promised you it wouldn’t happen again.”

His eyes melted into hers and the unspoken part of the conversation was much louder than the silence that followed. Remnants of the weeks following Bahrain scrambled through both of their minds, her failed suicide missions, razor blades, and her attempts to disappear.

“I can’t do this by myself, you know,” Phil said, carefully interlocking their fingers. The light from the window glinted off their clasped fingers, melting shadows onto their faces.

He was wearing her favorite suit she notice, how he managed to find it from the mess he had left for her after his death she didn’t know, but the smooth slate grey highlight his blue eyes even in the darkness.

“We had an agreement you know,” his voice rolled like waves and Melinda felt the overwhelming sense of sleepiness overcome her, “no one gets to die alone.”

She had bled all over the jacket once, in Tibet after a shootout that left her with two bullets to the side after she had pushed her partner out of the way of oncoming fire. The crimson had bled through the grey fabric in a stain that spread over almost all the jacket.

“You died first,” her voice was barely above a whisper.

She had secretly been pleased when he sent it to the dry cleaner in Bangkok who managed to clean it as good as knew but she would never admit it.

From right outside the door, Jemma was biting her lip to be quiet. “Is anyone else’s heart breaking right now?” she whispered to immediately be “sshhed” by the ex-Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avenger.

“You guys know we can here you, right?” Coulson called out.

He glanced back down at Melinda with a jovial glint in his eyes as squeezed her hand. In that moment, their look conveying the words that both of them were unable to speak.


End file.
